now trending with gen z: #datascience

Ujwala Bhagavatula, 26, knows a thing or two about switching gears.

As a civilian flight test engineer for the U.S. Navy, she analyzed helicopter data at a base in Maryland. A passion for data science and desire to move closer to home inspired Bhagavatula to make the leap to cybersecurity at Chevron in Houston, Texas.

Bhagavatula is part of a growing trend of Gen Zers gravitating toward data science jobs across industries outside of big tech.

In fact, according to college career site Handshake, Chevron is one of the top 10 companies Gen Z college grads want to work for. Big tech companies didn’t make the list at all. And, as the only energy company on the list, Chevron saw a 72% increase in search traffic related to data science jobs this year.

As a cybersecurity data scientist, Bhagavatula puts her skills and knowledge to work, helping Chevron:

• Analyze cybersecurity data.
• Build different models and tools that can scan text and detect unusual network activity.
• Classify emails based on text data.

The biggest perks of the job, she says, aren’t the hybrid work model, the pay or the benefits. For her, it’s the opportunity for career growth and advancement.

“There’s always something new or interesting to do, and everyone is motivated to keep growing and creating great ideas,” she said. “I chose Chevron because it’s an active company for tech and data science—one that innovates new strategies to age-old approaches to oil and gas.”

• In 2022–2023, Chevron hired 10 full-time college graduates and 19 interns for data science positions across the U.S., the Philippines, Argentina and Singapore.
• Bhagavatula has a master’s degree in data science, often pursued by those who majored in fields such as computer science, math, statistics or engineering.

“Data science is a relatively new graduate degree program in various academic institutions across the globe, and many graduates of such programs typically have another quantitative undergraduate degree,” said Justin Lo, head of Data Science and Analytics at Chevron.

For this new generation of data scientists, multiple tools are available—and even evolving—right at their fingertips. Some of those tools include virtual reality, which can be used to mimic an offshore platform, or artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand how unconventional reservoirs work.

In the office, problem solvers like Bhagavatula use data to unlock useful insights to help Chevron make better decisions and ultimately, deliver more energy to a growing world.

With more digital natives coming into the workforce, Lo predicts an acceleration in how complex data is synthesized.

“The future is now, as we see a digital savvy population come together in the energy industry,” he said. “More people will naturally use data and new technologies to drive unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation in the way we work.”